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weigh upwards of eighty pounds. They grows big here,' he added, 'but the visitors spoils 'em all, a-cutting their names upon 'em. We cannot be a-watching about the whole day.' We could not help wondering from what he had said whether our informant had not come to watch us. Then, after some further conversation, he remarked, 'I don't believe as how some people would be happy in heaven if they hadn't something to cut their names on there.'

Hurstmonceaux Church-A Fine Altar Tomb-The Origin of the Title of the Lords Dacre-An Ancient Brass-A Puzzling InscriptionPrimitive Doormats-Cottagers' Pride in their Homes-Old English Forests-Sussex Skies and Scenery 'Carrying Coals to Newcastle-A 'God's Providence' House The Minor Objects of the Road Normanhurst-English Native Architecture-A Modern Builder in an Old House-Classic Ground A Grand SeascapePast Events-Battle Abbey-The Norman Invasion-A Strange Omission-The Great Age of Sussex Men-One Hundred and Twenty Years Old.

A PLEASANT walk up the green slope of a hill led us from Hurstmonceaux Castle to Hurstmonceaux Church. This latter is situated far from the rectory, and has only a few scattered houses near it. Where the congregation comes from may well puzzle a stranger, but Sussex people often walk long miles to a place of worship.

From the churchyard here is a glorious view extending over a vast tract of country, bounded by the bold outline of the distant downs, whose swelling summits terminate grandly and fitly at the far-famed Beachy Head. We could not help observing during

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our journey through Sussex how the churches of that county are generally either so situated on a height as to afford splendid prospects all around, or else, by curious contrast, are placed deep down in a hollow, with no view whatever.

The exterior of Hurstmonceaux Church is as picturesque as its interior is interesting. In it we noticed a stately altar-tomb to Lord Dacre, the second of that title, deceased in 1534, and to his son, Sir Thomas Dacre, who died before his father. Beneath a richly carved and fretted canopy of stone their two recumbent figures are reproduced in armour, with hands crossed in the attitude of prayer, their feet resting on a crouching wolf-dog, the crest of the family. This emblem is also cut in stone above the gateway of the castle, where it holds a banneret with three lions rampant thereon. stood long before this grey and time-worn memorial of a great and once warlike family: it seemed to overpower the simple church and claim all attention for itself. There in the hollow below stands in ruined desolation the once proud castle of the Dacres. The place now knows their name no more; its open courts are bare to wind and weather; its ragged crumbling walls have become the home. of countless bats and screeching owls. 'So passes away the glory of the world.'

We

This noble and illustrious family is said to have derived its title from the gallant deeds of a member who fought under Richard Cœur de Lion in the Holy Land. It was at the siege of Acre this ancestor so distinguished himself; hence Lord

D'Acre, anglicised to Dacre. Scott, no mean authority upon such matters, alludes to this in The Lay of the Last Minstrel.' In canto iv. verse 17 he makes his minstrel say

To back and guard the archer band
Lord Dacre's bill-men were at hand,

A hardy race, on Irthing bred,
With kirtles white, and crosses red,
Array'd beneath the banner tall,

That stream'd o'er Acre's conquered wall.

And again, in the same canto, verse 29

fierce Dacre cried,

'For soon yon crest, my father's pride,
That swept the shores of Judah's sea,

And waved in gales of Galilee,' &c.

On the pavement of the church is a fine brass to Sir William Fienles, if we read the ancient inscription aright. Around its margin runs the following inscription, in quaint Norman French, the vacant spaces representing words that are now illegible :

William fienles, Chevaler qy. morast le vxiij. Jour de Janeuer, l'an del incarncon n're . . . . Jheu Cryst, Mile ccccij. gist ycy . . qy pur sa Alme devostement Pater Noster et Ave priera vjxx jours de pardon enauera.

The curious old French is not so difficult to translate, and the wanting words may be supplied, from experience of similar inscriptions; but the dates are not so readily to be comprehended, and after puzzling our brains over these we gave them up. What, for instance, does 'vxiij' mean? We guessed eighteen; but we did not feel at all sure

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about our guess. Again, how many is 'vjxx jours'? Why should these letters run so eccentrically, when the year of the good knight's death is so plainly written, Mile ccccij'? A tomb problem.

Once more returning to the churchyard, we made our way to the venerable yew-tree beneath whose gloomy shadow sleeps Julius Hare, for twenty-two years rector of the parish, and who had John Sterling for his first curate. Hurstmonceaux may justly be proud of the two honoured and household names of Hare and Sterling. Those of my readers who would know more of Hurstmonceaux I would refer to Augustus J. C. Hare's Memorials of a Quiet Life,' which work contains amongst other matter many interesting facts about the place and neighbourhood.

It would be difficult to find even in all fair England a more beautiful drive than that from Hurstmonceaux to Battle. The country between the two places abounds in loveliness; the series of landscapes revealed to the fortunate traveller who may chance to journey that way are as varied as they are attractive to the eye, and ever and anon peeps of the distant sea come upon him by way of pleasant surprises-a delightful blending of the rural and marine.

Our way led us past more than one ancient home half drowned in a wealth of greenery; by quaint old farmsteads, pictures in building, the very poetry of rural life; past many a picturesque cottage, nearly all of which had by their doorways wood fagots raised on end, supported by a stick in the centre,